The book also highlights just how determined Marshall was to carry on as if nothing had happened. A "portrait of a despairing woman who felt that she had lived too long," the journals recount how Astor was often paranoid and disoriented in her last years, was once dragged down a hallway by her son's lawyers to sign a new will, and had grown frightened of "men in blue suits" who "make me sign things." Many of the new details come from the journals that were kept by Astor's nurses and aides, who kept tabs on the aged socialite's visits with friends, family members, and shady attorneys thanks to a baby monitor that had been placed in Astor's bedroom. While a good deal of info on the scandal came out during the press bonzanza following Astor's death ("proof of the persistence of our voyeuristic fixation on the not-quite-extinct dinosaur, Society Rex," writes Michael Gross), Gordon has some chilling new material, too. Astor Regrets by Meryl Gordon, several passages from which were excerpted in the Post over the weekend. New details surrounding Astor's final days are now emerging with the publication of Mrs. If you looked at the papers with any regularity in the months that proceeded and followed her passing, you're probably familiar with the controversy involving Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, who was accused of neglecting his dying mother, forcing her to change her will, and plundering her estate. This image was lost some time after publication.īrooke Astor died last year at the age of 105.
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